


Illuminate

by Frenchibi



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: AU where Credence lives because I want him to, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 15:59:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10390422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frenchibi/pseuds/Frenchibi
Summary: He’s collected enough knowledge about the creatures in his case, and so much of it is unknown to the rest of the world. Newt is ready to share what he has learned.He knows what’s in his case, that’s the point. Enough, for now, perhaps.He knows.Except suddenly, he doesn’t.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Z_ee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Z_ee/gifts).



> This is for Zee, even though she didn't ask for it.
> 
> I was having a hard time and had to change something, so I decided to write for a different fandom for a bit.

Newt knows what’s in his suitcase.

He does, down to the last tiny insect – and not just since the sort-of disaster that was his trip to the States. He’s always known, because he cares for the creatures he’s studying. And it does make a difference, despite what people might say.

(He doesn’t really waste much time on what people say. It’s energy invested in worrying, and all it does is bring pain. Of course he has these thoughts, doubts, insecurities – but he keeps them buried, under the love he has for the creatures, the strong belief in his mission – scarcely to resurface. In moments of weakness, maybe, but the creatures are more important than he is, anyway.)

He’s focused, once he gets home ( _Hogwarts is my home_ , is what his heart is telling him – but that’s never without a twinge of hurt), warding off questions from the Department and pressure from his editor. (Why Worme added him to this project, Newt will never understand. Ridiculous, asking him to _breed them faster_. That man knows nothing about the delicate cycle-)

Well. Newt holds his tongue about that. As he does about so, so many things. _The weird man with the case full of creatures._

It’s easier to just work. He’ll prove them wrong, or he won’t – in the end, this isn’t about him. It’s about the blatant mistreating, trafficking and slaughter of magical creatures around the world that never fails to reignite the fire that drives him forward, fills him with determination.

He thinks of Jacob sometimes, and hopes he’s found happiness. On long, cold nights out in the plains (stars seem to calm them – Newt and the creatures both) he remembers Queenie and her cocoa and her warm smile (even though she could see the mess inside his mind, there had been so much kindness in her words, her actions) –

And Tina.

 _Deliver your copy in person_.

He keeps working, but his mood always lifts, thinking of them. The creatures can tell, too, and he knows many of them remember as well. Good people, kind people. Patient people.

Newt smiles, fond and slightly melancholy.

And he works. He spends days on end inside the case, observing, documenting, reconfirming theories, and then days and weeks travelling to try and complete a book he feels might never be complete, because there is always something more, something nobody has cared to jot down, something he might have missed-

But then again, what he has so far feels like a good start – and if no one stops him, he might never get anything published.

He’s collected enough knowledge about the creatures in his case, and so much of it is unknown to the rest of the world. Newt is ready to share what he has learned.

He knows what’s in his case, that’s the point. Enough, for now, perhaps.

He knows.

Except suddenly, he doesn’t.

~

He hasn’t gone near the obscurus, not since he made sure it was safely back in place. Of course he sees it hovering, sometimes, from the corner of his eye – he takes the time to reinforce the spell containing it, but he can’t quite look at the swirls of black matter.

It transformed back into the obscurial once, in the very beginning, only days after she’d died. Newt will never forget how it tried to hold her shape before falling apart, it was like losing her a second time, and it broke his heart to watch.

It’s a sight that haunts his nightmares to this day, and sometimes, the swirls remind him of it.

Of course now, there’s another painful memory, a newer one.

Ultimately, that’s what makes him look at the orb for the first time in months after he’s returned. He forces himself not to turn away, to watch and to _remember_.

“They deserved better,” he says, to the silence around him and the ever-pulsating orb. It doesn’t feel like enough.

~

It’s not his imagination – it follows him around, after that.

There’s not much Newt can do to contain an energy like the obscurus, but he’d assumed he’d tied it down well enough, made sure it wouldn’t escape its enclosure or the spells containing its form, to prevent the collateral damage it seemed to cause wherever it went. A dark force, after all. Feared.

(In this world, feared means hunted.)

Apparently, he’d been mistaken. In the following days, Newt sees the orb easily pass through all the wards he’s put up – wards it hadn’t once moved to escape from since that first transformation. Not until now.

He strengthens them, to no avail – whatever prompted the change is like another ticking time bomb for him, _find out as much about this energy as possible before it escapes_.

Except-

The obscurus does not try to leave.

It follows Newt to the ladder, hovering between little glass vials, jars, and bundles of herbs, but doesn’t move further.

When he (cautiously, slowly) opens the case, it bobs, but doesn’t come closer.

After closing the case, feet firmly back on solid ground, Newt stands for at least five minutes with his wand drawn.

The obscurus doesn’t follow him.

 

When he returns, it’s bobbing right where he left it.

~

There’s something in the case Newt doesn’t know about.

Something that keeps evading him, slinking away before he can get too close.

He knows what’s in his suitcase, except all he knows about this _thing_ is what he _doesn’t_ know.

It hides. It’s there, he _knows_ it’s there, but it’s like a negative space, a hole, known only by what it is not.

It is not something Newt added to the case.

It is not hostile. As far as Newt knows.

(Then again, few things truly are. The most hostile creature Newt knows is the human.)

It’s just.. there.

~

Sometimes, he dreams of Credence.

Not of the darkness that seemed to weigh him down so, of the injustice and hardships, of manipulation and pain and despair.

Newt remembers a scared boy with the eyes of someone who’s hunted.

Wide and terrified.

He wakes from those dreams with sweat and tears, and a loneliness he can’t even begin to describe.

 

And a presence, pulling away. Watching. Hiding.

Gone.

~

He doesn’t hear them coming.

It was stupid, he thinks in retrospect, to stay at an inn, out in the open, when his face has been all over the paper.

_The man with the case full of magical creatures._

A perfect target for poachers if there’s ever been one.

Newt doesn’t hear them coming.

 

But something does.

Something that’s there, but it isn’t, because it _can’t be._

Something that finds its way out of the case even though it’s sealed shut.

Something dark.

 

Newt is the first person to tell you that dark does not have to mean evil.

 

It’s a presence, an impossible presence, a shadow, a flicker in the air – and the men that had Newt cornered crumple to the ground.

A wisp of air beside Newt’s face, and he turns in time to see the faintest hint of black, disappearing back inside the case.

 

Dark. Hiding.

 

Scared.

 

“…Credence…?”

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [this fanart](http://viviena.tumblr.com/post/153454305098/attacking-a-man-traveling-with-a-devoted-obscurial), probably getting a continuation at some point.  
> Shoutout to CJ for endless patience yet again.
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](http://frenchibi.tumblr.com), and do tell me what you thought of this in the comments, maybe?


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